Ven. Thomas Sprott

(Spratt)

English martyr, b. at Skelsmergh, near Kendal, Westmoreland; suffered at Lincoln with [the Venerable] Thomas Hunt, 11 July, 1600. Sprott was ordained priest from the English College, Douai, in 1596, was sent on the mission that same year, and signed the letter to the pope, dated 8 November, 1598, in favour of the institution in England of the archpriest. Hunt, a native of Norfolk, was a priest of the English College of Seville, and had been imprisoned at Wisbech, where he had escaped with five others, some months previously. They were arrested at the Saracen's Head, Lincoln, upon the discovery of the holy oils and two Breviaries in their mails. When brought to trial, though their being priests was neither proved nor confessed, nor was any evidence produced, the judge, Sir John Glanville, directed the jury to find them guilty, which was done. The judge died sixteen days afterwards under unusual circumstances, as Dr. Worthington (quoted by Bishop Challoner) records.

CHALLONER, Missionary Priests, I (Edinburgh, 1877), nos. 118 and 119; KNOX, Douay Diaries (London, 1878), 16, 32; POLLEN, English Martyrs 1584-1683 in Cath. Rec. Soc. (London, 1908), 384.

John B. Wainewright